Our world is fluid. Seven tenths of the Earth’s surface is water; a similar ratio holds for the body’s proportion of liquid to solid. Interesting things happen in fluid, and life seeks it out. Discrete elements dissolve and commingle. Change is swift and subtle forces hold sway, opening possibilities. Our culture and our creations exist solely in the fluid realm, exceeding the limits of material liquid and leaving us grasping the paradigm of change as the only solid.

COLLISION16:fluid, the sixteenth COLLISIONcollective group show of new work, explores the concept of the fluid and the changing, in a wide variety of manifestations and interpretations. These works range from a piece in which pixels on screen are programmed to act like a liquid, to works that explores the fluid boundaries of our perception, from work that aesthetisizes the “glitch” —an unanticipated or undesired change in the media stream, to a work that uses images projected on ice to explore our changing climate. What these works have in common is that they express the contingent and the unforeseeable. As technology’s rate of change continues to get faster and faster, it has dramatic consequences for our culture. In order to reflect our world, our art must be able to embody the fluid. We believe the work in COLLISION16:fluid does exactly that.

COLLISION16:fluid was co-curated by John Slepian and William Tremblay. The opening reception was February 25, 2011, from 6 - 9pm.